The Work of D L Ennis…

Monthly Archives: September 2008

A large American Beech tree begins to display its fall colors as do some other trees across the lake and the entire of the landscape takes on an autumnal feel…

2008 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs (THAT MEANS NO ADDS AND NO SELLING OF ANY KIND) but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts https://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.

A back road through the forest in Bedford County, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia…

2008 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs (THAT MEANS NO ADDS AND NO SELLING OF ANY KIND) but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts https://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.

You know I have only seen about three monarch butterflies all year and yesterday afternoon I went out on our back deck…we have a large stand of butterfly bushes some standing eight to ten feet tall in a garden straight out from the deck about fifteen feet away. Next to the deck are smaller butterfly bushes and all of them are still blooming profusely. I sat down and suddenly noticed that the taller bushes were very active and a closer look revealed dozens of Monarchs. I couldn’t get a good shot of them because they were in the tops of the bushes and when I moved closer my view was obstructed by lower branches. Luckily as I sat there watching a couple came to the closer and lower bushes…I couldn’t get a shot of the large mass of them I wanted but I did get a half dozen shots of one.

“Unlike most other insects in temperate climates, Monarch butterflies cannot survive a long cold winter. Instead, they spend the winter in roosting spots. Monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains travel to small groves of trees along the California coast. Those east of the Rocky Mountains fly farther south to the forests high in the mountains of Mexico. The monarch’s migration is driven by seasonal changes. Daylength and temperature changes influence the movement of the Monarch.

In all the world, no butterflies migrate like the Monarchs of North America. They travel much farther than all other tropical butterflies, up to three thousand miles. They are the only butterflies to make such a long, two way migration every year. Amazingly, they fly in masses to the same winter roosts, often to the exact same trees. Their migration is more the type we expect from birds or whales. However, unlike birds and whales, individuals only make the round-trip once. It is their children’s grandchildren that return south the following fall.

Another unsolved mystery is how Monarchs find the overwintering sites each year. Somehow they know their way, even though the butterflies returning to Mexico or California each fall are the great-great-grandchildren of the butterflies that left the previous spring. No one knows exactly how their homing system works; it is another of the many unanswered questions in the butterfly world.”

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs (THAT MEANS NO ADDS AND NO SELLING OF ANY KIND) but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts https://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.

Lake sprites dance on the lake with a light show provided by sunbeams…

2008 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs (THAT MEANS NO ADDS AND NO SELLING OF ANY KIND) but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts https://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.

A Canada goose lands shattering the surface of the lake as another is on approach about to touchdown…

2008 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs (THAT MEANS NO ADDS AND NO SELLING OF ANY KIND) but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts https://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.

Early morning on the Blue Ridge Parkway at Otter Lake as autumn starts to make itself known…

2008 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs (THAT MEANS NO ADDS AND NO SELLING OF ANY KIND) but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts https://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.